


Alone in the World

by laxit21



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Apocalypse, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-09 01:04:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17991881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laxit21/pseuds/laxit21
Summary: Oliver and Felicity are trapped in the bunker when Chase sets off an EMP. They emerge hours later to find that the world has changed drastically in those few hours they were trapped.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna be a very short story, only about five chapters long.

Felicity walked past Oliver and over to one of her computers. She put the thumb drive in her hand into one of the slots.

“Is that it?” Oliver asked.

“Yep.”

“James’ magic tracker to find Chase.”

“Biometric tracker, and yes.” She said, as she started typing.

“No one at ARGUS was seriously injured, in case you were wondering.”

“Helix froze me out.” She said turning to face him. “It’s over.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought you were never gonna lie to me again.”

“I'm not lying. I'm sorry. I know that they gave you a sense of belonging that I haven't-“

“No, you didn’t back my play.” She said, cutting him off.

“I- I was worried.”

“You don’t trust me.” She argued. “After all these years, all the times I supported you, even if I didn’t agree. And you couldn’t do the same for me.”

“Fel-“ He started to say but then the computer began beeping. “What’s that?”

“The tracker’s honing in on Chase’s location.” She explained.

“Where is he?”

“He’s here.” She said in shock.

They both heard beeping and then a loud bang echoed through the lair. Oliver woke up to a throbbing pain in his head and his ears ringing. “Felicity? Felicity!”

“I’m here. I’m fine.” She said. “Just- Chase is here.”

 

 

Oliver stood up and started searching the area. He looked around as best he could in the darkness, but couldn’t find any sign of Adrian Chase. “If he’s here, he’s not on this level. It felt like an explosion but there’s minimal damage.”

“It was an EMP, a burst of electromagnetic radiation. Everything in the bunker with an electric circuit has been fried.”

“Wait? Everything?”

“Yup.” She said. “Well, except the chip in my spine. Thank god Curtis figured out a way to make it EMP-proof.” She chuckled a little bit.

She walked to a box nearby and pulled out some chemlights so that they wouldn’t be completely in the dark. Oliver, meanwhile, continued searching the bunker for any sign of Chase.

“No sign. It looks like the EMP was his play. Elevator and security doors are offline.”

“Did you check the emergency exit door?”

“Yeah. Welded shut.”

“If Chase wasn’t so evil, I might be impressed.” Felicity remarked.

“How much air do we have down here?” Oliver asked.

“Enough.” She answered.

“What do you mean?”

“The building has a back-up generator. It’s not housed down here. Assuming some kind of catastrophic attack, its tamper-proof so nothing came stop it from turning back on. Then the elevator will start working.” She explained. “All we have to do is wait.”

“For how long?”

“About three hours.” She answered.

“We can’t wait that long.” Oliver said, grabbing his quiver. He started firing arrows at the door to the bunker. None of the explosive arrows made a dent.

“Whats that thing made out of?”

“Keltsium. It’s a proprietary alloy developed by the US government to repel nuclear blasts.”

“So, you’re saying even if we had a nuke down here it wouldn’t work?”

They started talking about what Chase’s aim might be, and soon Oliver told Felicity that Chase knew about William but hadn’t found him yet. She pulled out Cisco’s blueprints so they could find a way out. Oliver wanted to climb up the elevator shaft, but Felicity stopped him before he could get the doors open, saying she had a plan to restart the generator.

Her plan was to use Oliver’s bike to kickstart the generator. It was starting to work, but the bike’s engine failed before she could start the reset. Oliver remembered they were in a part of the bunker over a steam tunnel and all they needed to do to get out was break through the wall.

He shot an arrow at the door, which luckily, was able to blow the door down without doing any other damage to the building. Felicity had mentioned, right before he shot the arrow, that there was a pipe of toxic and explosive gas running along the ceiling and that damaging it could cause a gas leak.  With the door down, Oliver grabbed the climbing gear and they repelled down to the tunnel floor.  They kept running into dead ends, but eventually, Oliver found a way leading out of the tunnel.

“Do you think they know we’re trapped down here? The team I mean.” Felicity wondered as they walked toward the access point of the steam tunnel.

“Yeah. They have to. The bunker’s power shutting off would’ve alerted Curtis or something at least. They know we’re down here.” He said. “They’re probably up there, working on a way to get us out.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

They reached the end of the tunnel, where there was a ladder leading up to the street. Oliver had Felicity go first, worried that if she was behind him, she might lose her grip and fall. If she went first, he could catch her. They climbed the ladder and reached the surface, exiting a manhole cover in the alley behind Oliver’s campaign office.

“Let’s go inside. Tell the team we’re okay.” Oliver suggested.

He tried to open the back door, but it wouldn’t budge. They rushed to the front of the building, but as soon as they turned the corner, their jaws dropped. The street looked like something straight out of a war zone. Few buildings were still standing. The ones that had collapsed were bombed out husks. Everything in sight looked like it had been destroyed and abandoned.

“How is this possible?” Felicity asked. “We were only down there for a few hours.”

She turned to look into his campaign office, hoping to see the team, but it was empty.They got into Felicity’s car and drove through the city. Not only was the entire city a bombed-out wasteland, but there didn’t seem to be any people anywhere in the city. They tried to turn on the radio but all they got was static. The city was quiet, way too quiet. After driving around for over an hour, Oliver came to a conclusion.

“We’re the only ones left.”

While Oliver and Felicity had been trapped in the bunker, the world ended.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity try to figure out what happened, and we get a glimpse at what the team was up to.

“We’re the only ones left.” Oliver said.

Felicity slammed on the breaks as soon as he said that. “No- we- that doesn’t make sense. There has to be something, someone, here.”

“Look around us. This city looks like it had a bomb, or twenty, dropped on it. Not only have we not seen anyone, but there hasn’t been any sign of people. It’s like they all just vanished.” Or died.

“If that’s true, why are we here? How did we survive? Why didn’t whatever kill them kill us?”

“We were trapped in essentially a fall-out bunker for most of the last three hours.” Oliver pointed out. “I’m not saying that is what happened, but it’s a credible explanation. If a nuke had gone off-”

“No, it- there couldn’t have been some kind of nuclear attack. One, there aren’t any nukes left thanks to Darhk, remember? And two, after a nuke goes off, there’s fall-out. As soon as we stepped outside, we would’ve started dying of radiation sickness. Like you said, we were only down there for three hours.”

“Well, I can’t think of a better explanation why this city-“

“That’s it.” Felicity said. “What if its just this city? I mean, what if, whatever happened, it only happened here?”

“So, you think if we leave, head to Central City or something, everyone will be living their normal lives?”

“It’s worth a shot. And maybe in Central City, Barry can tell us what happened. And this whole ghost-town thing is starting to freak me out.”

“As far as we know, everyone living here died.” Oliver pointed out.

“Where are the bodies though? If it was a nuke, we couldn’t have taken a direct hit, because there wouldn’t still be buildings standing. Which meant we were just hit by the shockwave. And if it wasn’t a nuke, there’d be bodies somewhere. There’d be survivors. Something.”

They couldn’t be the last two people on Earth. She couldn’t be the last woman on Earth. That would mean that they were all that was left of the human race. John, Thea, Quentin, her mom, it would mean they were all dead. She and Oliver were alone and then, one day, one of them would die, leaving the other alone, until they died and humanity was completely gone. She couldn’t handle the possibility that was true.

“Ok.” He agreed. He could tell that she was freaking out about the possibility that they were the only two people left on Earth. He didn’t want to make things worse by mentioning all of the other ways the world had ended besides a bomb.

* * *

 

**One Hour After the EMP**

Rene, Curtis, Dinah, Lyla and Digg had set up shop on the first floor of Oliver’s old campaign office. Curtis realized something was wrong when he tried to get into the bunker and discovered the power was completely off. He called the others when he realized the bunker was the last location Felicity and Oliver’s tracking nanites had been logged.

Curtis and John were making a list of things they’d need to get them out of the bunker for Lyla. She’d told them that they had ARGUS at their disposal for this.

“I hate to ask this, but how much air do they have left down there?” Dinah asked.

“Five, maybe six hours. If they don’t exert themselves.” Curtis answered.

Lyla came back shortly after she left with everything they’d asked for. Curtis and Rene had begun prying the elevator doors open and starting setting up the acetaylne torch to cut through the hatch when her phone rang.

“Director Michaels.” She said, answering it. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. What?” She hung up the phone and turned to the others. She looked worried.

“What is it?” John asked her.

* * *

 

**Central City-Present**

Oliver and Felicity’s ride to Central City was as eerie as their drive through Star City. What normally would’ve been a ten-hour drive took them less than six. Just as there appeared to be no other people in Star City, there were absolutely no other cars on the road during their drive. All the buildings they drove past were either crumbling or completely destroyed. Felicity wound up falling asleep shortly after leaving the city. Oliver spent the drive trying to figure out what he was going to say to Felicity when she woke up.

They had a lot they needed to talk about, even if they weren’t the only two people left on Earth. If they were the only ones left, then they’d have to talk eventually, but he didn’t want them to solve their issues because they had to, but because they both agreed that they wanted to.

Felicity woke up from her nap right as they entered Central City. Just like the city they’d just left, it looked completely abandoned. They both got a sense of foreboding as they drove further into the city. It was a ghost town, just like Star City.

Oliver turned the last corner on the way to Star Labs and stopped the car. “This- are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Yeah.” Felicity said, sounding like she didn’t want to admit it.

The Star Labs building was still standing, but by the looks of things, no one had been there in a long, long time.

“How is this possible?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any theories about what happened?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team gets a surprise and Oliver and Felicity learn what happened.

**One Hour After EMP**

“Director Michaels.” Lyla said, answering her phone. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. What?” She hung up the phone and turned to the others. She looked worried.

“What is it?” John asked her.

“I had ARGUS do a fly-by with thermal imaging. I wanted to make sure that when we get that hatch open, there aren’t any surprises waiting down there. Like, say, Prometheus.”

“He’s down there with them?” Dinah asked.

“No.” She answered. “No one’s down there.”

“What do you-?”

“Thermal imaging only shows five people in this building. Us.” She said. “I don’t know where Oliver and Felicity are, but they aren’t in that bunker.”

“Is it- I hate to say it, but is it possible they’re down there, but they aren’t giving off a heat signature?” John asked.

“Meaning?” Curtis asked.

“He’s asking if they might be dead.” Rene answered.

“I had them look for that too. There’s nothing coming from down there.” Lyla answered.

“We need to get down there.” John said. “Now.”

* * *

 

**Central City-Present**

“How is this possible?” Felicity asked.

“I don’t know.” Oliver said, getting out of the car. “You stay here, I’ll head inside.”

“Like hell I am.” She said, opening her own door. “I’m not sitting out here waiting to get attack by zombies. I’ve seen horror movies.”

“Felicity, there’s no people.”

“You don’t know that.” She responded. “I’m coming with you. We can figure this out better together.”

Oliver sighed but didn’t argue with her. They walked up to the front door and found it unlocked before quietly slipping inside. The lights were shut off, but thankfully it was still light enough outside to see as they walked down the hallway.

They agreed that the Cortex was the best place to start looking. The building might appear abandoned, but looks could be deceiving. For all they knew, the appearance was intentional and Team Flash was up and running, using the dilapidated building as a cover for one reason or another. They made it to the Cortex and found that it was also hadn’t been used in a very long time.

Several windows were broken. A computer monitor was shattered on the floor. Scientific instruments were lined up perfectly on one of Caitlin’s trays. Barry’s suit was still on the mannequin, collecting dust. Felicity saw their computers and rushed over to turn them on. Nothing happened.

“Power’s off.” Oliver remarked.

“We need to go turn it back on.” Felicity said. “My computers in the bunker and both our phones are fried. This machine isn’t.”

“Even if it works, the world still looks like it ended.”

“There are still satellites in space. And if I can’t find some way to get on the internet, then my name isn’t Felicity Smoak.” She pointed out.

“Where would I even go to turn the power on?”

It took a few dead ends for Felicity to figure out where the generator was, but eventually, Felicity and Oliver found the generator and managed to turn it on. Walking back to the Cortex, it occurred to Felicity that they could check the time vault, but she decided not to go in there unless she had to.

Felicity sat down in front of Cisco’s computer and waited for it to boot up. She logged in and tried to get onto the internet. She was slowly starting to pick up a signal from the Star Labs satellite when her eyes caught something.

“No. No, this can’t be right.” She said, staring at the screen.

“What? What is it?”

She stood up and speedwalked from the room. “We need to get to the Time Vault.”

“Wait, what- what’s going on?”

“May 3, 2017.”

“You mean yesterday’s date?”

“That’s when we got trapped in the bunker, right?” She asked.

“Yes.” He answered nervously as they reached the Vault.

They walked into the room and the lights automatically turned on. “Gideon?”

“Voice match: Felicity Smoak. Playing video message.” The program said.

Barry’s face appeared on screen. “Felicity, if you’re watching this, it can only mean one thing. It means our predictions were right, but I’m not here to see it. I hope you’re with Oliver and I hope by now you’ve realized what happened. In case you haven’t worked it out yet, you and Oliver stepped into the bunker under Oliver’s old campaign office on May 3, 2017. When your team entered the bunker three hours later, you two weren’t there. We searched everywhere, and I mean everywhere, for you. On every Earth and we couldn’t find you. It was Sara who ended up giving us a theory. Cisco put some very bleeding edge and experimental tech in the bunker, tech that was capable of things we didn’t fully understand. When the EMP went off, the surge unlocked an unknown ability of some of the tech. It threw you forward in time. We don’t know how far.” He sighed. “And because of the quantum nature of how a time machine works, the Legends can’t determine where in time you’re gonna land until you land. The only thing we were able to deduce was that you’ll land sometime in the future, not the past. Whatever heroes are operating in Central City when you two reappear is gonna show you this tape. I’m kinda hoping you never have to see this tape. I don’t- I have no idea how I’m supposed to end this message.”

“Gideon, when was this filmed?” Oliver asked.

“Mr. Allen’s message was recorded on November 3, 2017. Six months after you went missing.”

“And how- how long ago was that?”

“Over thirty years.”

Over 30 years. They’d jumped forward in time by over 30 years. The world had moved on, and ended, without them. How long had their friends searched? How many people they loved died while they were still missing?

“Oh my god.” Felicity said as she started crying. “When did all of this happen? The world becoming like this.”

“It was a combination of two events that led to The Event as I’ve taken to calling it. Remnants of HIVE rebuilt the organization and, two years following your disappearance, launched a coordinated attack on every major city on Earth. They didn’t have nuclear weapons, but they had more than enough non-nuclear bombs to do the job. The second event-”

“What was it?”

“There was a virus. When news of it first broke, scientists were jokingly referring to it as the Second Black Death. The name’s rather apt if I may give my opinion. It found a way to evolve lightyears fast than a vaccine or treatment plan could be found.”

“So, a virus destroyed humanity. And we’re the only ones left.”

“That may not be entirely true.” Gideon answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, what could Gideon's last line mean?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity get a little bit of good news, the fate of a few people is revealed and someone gets a call they've been waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how I'm supposed to deal with the news that Arrow will be ending after a 10-episode 8th season. So, instead of processing that, I decided to write more of this story.

“So, a virus destroyed humanity. And we’re the only ones left.”

“That may not be entirely true.” Gideon said.

“What do you mean?”

“When the sickness began to spread exponentially, a small percentage of humanity believed the only way to ensure the human race’s survival was to simply wait it out.”

“Wait it out? You can’t just wait out a plague.” Oliver said.

“Yes, you can. People tried it in the Middle Ages to escape the Black Death, but they didn’t know anything about contagious diseases so it didn’t work. Like in _The Decameron.”_

“I’m sorry, the what?”

“It’s a collection of stories, but thing tying the stories together is that they’re being told by a group of people secluded in a house, trying to escape the Black Death.” She explained. “The idea was if you and a group of other non-infected people stay locked away and separate from the infected for long enough, the disease will burn itself out and you’ll survive.”

“You think that’s what happened with humanity?”

“I think that a nuclear fall-out shelter could double as a secure place to quarantine the healthy and keep the disease from spreading further. And while they might not have been able to cure the disease, they might’ve known how to detect when someone’s infected.” She said. “Am I right Gideon?”

“It’s true. A small section of humanity retreated underground to a series of doomsday bunkers. Unfortunately, the power in this building failed after they’d locked themselves away and I have not been in contact with any of the shelters since.”

“So, it possible all of the shelters were overrun, or its possible there are hundreds, possibly thousands of people, safe and sound in bunkers underground.” Oliver said. “Where’s the closest bunker?”

“The outskirts of Star City.”

“Ok, but where?”

“I do not know. It was built in secret following Genesis. It’s existence was only revealed when ARGUS sent out a radio message informing survivors.”

“It’s an ARGUS bunker?”

“Yes.”

“I think it’s time for us to go back home.” Oliver told Felicity.

“Wait, I- don’t you wanna know?” She turned back to Gideon. “What happened to everyone, to our friends?”

“I am not sure of the whereabouts or statuses of many individuals. Curtis Holt, Caitlin Snow and Rene Ramirez were killed when the bombs fell. Barry Allen attempted to travel back to 2017 to prevent either of you from entering that bunker, but he never returned. I am unsure if he died or simply overshot his mark. It's likely many of the others were killed by the disease.”

Oliver saw the look on Felicity’s face and knew they needed to leave. She would start asking questions, questions about how they died, questions she didn’t really want to know the answers to. “We need to get back to Star City.”

“What’s the point?”

“The people in that bunker might still be alive. John, Thea, Roy. For all we know, they’re down there and they’ve spent 30 plus years wondering what happened to us. We could see them again. We need to find that bunker and open it.” He said.

“I’m not sure that’s our best move. We shouldn’t be worried about what we do now, we should be worried about getting back to 2017.”

“Barry tried that.”

“He did, the Legends didn’t. Until we got spat out by the time machine yesterday, they didn’t know when we were. If we can get a signal out, Sara might be able to pick it up.”

“We don’t know that. For all we know, the Legends tried to stop the plague or the bombing and died.”

“Do you really believe that?” Felicity asked. “Because I don’t.”

“I’m not leaving here without you, but I don’t want to sit around waiting for them to maybe show up.” He said. “I know you think this is best, but we can’t survive here long-term. We have to pick, the bunker or the signal.”

“Maybe we don’t.” She turned to face Gideon’s console. “The powers back on. It should stay on for at least a few months, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you can broadcast a signal to the Legends, correct?”

“It has been some time, but I can certainly try.”

“Good. Do that. Send a signal that we’re alive, we’re in whatever year this is, and we’re in Star City.”

“The year is 2050.” The program told her.

Felicity and Oliver were both despondent as they left Star Labs to go home. They’d been missing for 33 years. People died not knowing what happened to them. There were people they never got to say goodbye to. They each wondered if going looking for the bunker, for survivors, was even worth it.

 

“Do you ever wonder if we missed them?” Thea turned to the two people next to her and asked. “Ollie and Felicity I mean. We’ve been down here for years. What if, while we’ve been waiting out the disease, they came back but couldn’t find us?”

“Thea-“

“I’ve always been worried that I’d die before I got to see Ollie again, but what if the opposite happens?” When they first disappeared, Thea had been sure she’d see them again, but 55-year old Thea was a lot less optimistic than 22-year old Thea.

 

Sara was sparring against Amaya on the Waverider when Gideon spoke. “Captain Lance, we are receiving a strange signal.”

“What’s the point of origin?”

“Central City, 2050.”

“Ok, and what’s the message?” She said, signaling for a time-out from Amaya.

“Sara, we’re alive. We’re in Star City, 2050. Ollie and Felicity.” The AI repeated.

Sara took off running down the hallway of the ship until she reached the bridge. “The message, its authentic?”

“It appears to be.”

“Set a course for 2050. Time to bring them home.” Sara hit a button to speak over the intercom. “Everyone buckle up. Now. I’m engaging the time drive in 10 seconds. Ten, nine, five, zero.” She hit the throttle to move the ship.

“What happened to all the other numbers?” Someone yelled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who do you think is still alive? Who do you think isn't? What will happen first, Olicity find the bunker or Sara finds them?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity search, and a long overdue reunion takes place.

Oliver and Felicity made it back to Star City, but they didn’t begin searching right away. Gideon had only told them that the bunker was somewhere on the outskirts of the city. They hadn’t gotten any more information than that. The outskirts of the city was a pretty big area to cover for just two people. Not to mention that the number of ruins would make searching even more difficult.

They went back to Oliver’s old campaign office. The building still had power, there was food and they didn’t know if the loft or Oliver apartment building was still standing. Besides, most of Oliver’s arrows and other supplies should still be down there. They entered the building as normal, and tried to ignore the ominous feeling in the pit of their stomachs as they walked through the abandoned office.

The elevator doors opened to into the foundry and it looked different. The layout was different, there were different pieces of equipment and most notably, it clearly hadn’t been used in a long time. “I don’t remember it being like this.”

“Because thirty years passed. The lair we were trapped in isn’t the one we escaped from or the one we’re standing in right now.” She said. She brushed past him and made it to the room where Oliver had broken the wall down. The hole in the wall was nowhere to be found. That meant that either the team had found the hole and repaired it or as part of the quantum state that threw them forward in time, the bunker they broke out of no longer existed and was replaced by this one. Just thinking about it was giving Felicity a headache.

“Ok, so its not the same lair.” He said. “How do we even start looking for the bunker?”

“Well, the lights are back on down here, so we have power. I don’t know what state the internet might be in, but assuming HIVE didn’t also crash every satellite into earth, I should be able to get some kind of signal. Use it to analyze patterns over the city.”

“What kind of patterns?”

“Assuming the bunker isn’t just- assuming there’s people to find, that kind of shelter is gonna need to draw power from somewhere and if the world was in as bad shape as Gideon made it sound, they weren’t gonna just hardwire their power onto the grid. Still, power means energy and energy means it’ll give off heat, which I should be able to track. It’ll just take a while because slow internet.”

“We can’t just sit here until then.” He argued.

“I wasn’t suggesting we do. We let the program work and while its slowly inching towards a location, we can start searching other areas. We divide the city into quadrants, start on one side, slowly make our way over to the other side of the city.” She said.

Oliver and Felicity’s next two months followed a pattern. They woke up, Felicity checked to see how much progress her program had made, which usually wasn’t much, while Oliver made them breakfast. They then headed out to a section of the city they hadn’t already checked to try and find an entrance to the ARGUS bunker or some clue to where it was. They’d search until dusk and then return to the lair. Since the city was a ghost town, the Green Arrow wasn’t needed to patrol the streets at night. Along the way, Felicity would search shops and stores for any food or supplies they needed. The situation also gave them plenty of time to talk, about several topics they would’ve been able to avoid otherwise.

On day 63 of Oliver and Felicity’s search for the ARGUS bunker, she woke up to find that her program had finally finished running. It was finished and it had a location. Felicity was so excited, she nearly hit Oliver in the face as she fist-pumped in victory. They scarfed down their food, grabbed their things and headed to the location. It was towards the end of their list, since they were searching the city moving from east to west. It would’ve been weeks, if not months, until they reached the location on their own.

The entrance to the doomsday bunker was a thick, lead door in the sub-basement of an office building. It made sense for ARGUS to build it there. It was the last place anyone would think to look.

“How are we gonna get the door open?” Felicity asked when they were standing in front of it. They’d been so focused on finding the bunker that they didn’t think far enough a head to worry about getting into the shelter.

“Step away from the door.” Oliver said as he brought his bow up. He was glad that he hadn’t used up all of his explosive arrows trying to get out of the lair with Felicity. He fired one arrow, then another. Then, another.

 

In the ARGUS bunker, two of the guards were talking to each other when one of them heard a pounding noise.

“Do you hear that?”

“No.”

The pounding happened again. “There it is again.”

“Alex, you’re- wait, I hear it.” His colleague said. “Is it- it’s coming from the door.”

“What do we do?”

“What’s happening?” A voice said from behind them. Both men turned to see their boss standing there. The man was one of the oldest people living in the bunker, but he was just as intimidating as ever.

“Assistant Director, we- someone’s outside.”

The noise had echoed through the bunker so after the seventh or eighth time the pounding noise happened, a crowd had started to form near the door.

“What do- there’s been radio silence for years. I don’t know what the protocol is.”

“What do you normally do when someone knocks on the door?” An older woman in the back of the crowd asked as she made her way to the front, followed by her husband. “Open it.”

“But the disease-“

“It’s been 33 years. It’s burned itself out by now.” The Assistant Director said. “Open the door.”

The two guards nodded and began the lengthy process of undoing all of the locks and disengaging the security measures keeping the shelter sealed.

 

Oliver had just fired arrow number 10 when he thought he heard something move on the other side of the door. He stopped to make sure he wasn’t hearing things. A quiet thud could be heard, and he turned to look at Felicity. She heard the same noise and walked over to him. Oliver stopped firing arrows and waited, hoping the noises he heard were the door being opened.

 

All of the failsafes were turned off and the locks were disengaged. Before they opened the door, the two guards turned back to the Assistant Director. “This is your last chance to change your mind.”

“I haven’t. Open it.” He ordered. The door was pushed open. Dim lighting was flickering in the hallway. The door swung open and standing right in front of it was- “I don’t believe it.”

 

Oliver and Felicity stood in front of the door and waited with baited breath as the door creaked open as the seal was broken. Then, it swung open, revealing a crowd of people. Two men who looked to be in their twenties were the first people they saw.

Standing behind the two men was a black man who looked to be around 75. He was standing next to a woman in her mid-fifties and a man who was around 60. His eyes caught theirs and he spoke. “I don’t believe it.” He pushed past the two guards. “Oliver? Felicity?”

“John?!” Felicity asked, in shock, as she moved closer to him. John Diggle was a lot older than the last time she saw him, but she wouldn’t forget those eyes anywhere.

The woman next to John moved forward as she shouted, “Ollie! Oh my god!”

“Speedy?” Oliver said as he ran over to his sister.

“I found you. I finally found you!” Thea said as she started tearing up.”I- we were worried we wouldn’t- or that you- I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Me neither Speedy.”

Felicity had finally let go of John and realized the 60-year-old man was Roy and started hugging him. “How- you two are so young-.”

“We- Sara was right. Her theory about what happened The timeship- we wound up here months ago. It- we found out what happened and we’ve been looking for this bunker ever since. Gideon told us about it.”

“I’m sure Mom wouldn’t have been happy about that.” A black man in his thirties said, walking up behind John.

“You guys remember JJ, right?” John said.

“JJ as in-“ The last time Felicity saw JJ, he was a toddler. Now, he was a fully grown adult. “We missed so much.”

 “We never- we didn’t stop looking for you. You know that right? None of us. We kept looking until-“ Thea said, getting choked up. She didn’t want them to think they’d been forgotten about or their friends and family gave up on finding them.

“We know.”

“I hate to break up this reunion, but I think both of you are in the wrong decade.” Sara’s voice called out.

She’d snuck into the room right as the bunker door opened. She didn’t want to rob Thea or John of their chance to see Oliver and Felicity again, so she stayed hidden while they were reunited. They’d spent years looking for Oliver and Felicity and then decades feeling guilty that the pandemic kept them from continuing their search.

“I- what do you mean?”

“I’m here to take both of you back to 2017.” She said. “I’ll explain on the Waverider.”

“No, you can’t.” Thea argued. “We spent 33 years wondering what happened. We just got them back.”

“And when I take them to 2017, you’ll never have lost them in the first place. I don’t want to take them away from you, but-”

“Speedy, its gonna be okay.” Oliver said. “I’ll see you before you know it.”

Reluctantly, their friends let Oliver and Felicity board Sara’s ship. They made it to the bridge before Sara dropped her ‘captain’ mask and rushed to hug them.

“It’s so good to see you. And now we can set things right.”

“What do you mean?”

“This future- it wasn’t supposed to happen.” She said. “But you can fix it.”

“We- all of this happened because of us?” It was their fault the world ended?

“No, stop thinking that right now. It isn’t your fault” Sara ordered Oliver. “I’m taking you back to the time period you belong in. You won’t have disappeared, your team won’t have spent years searching, this whole experience will be like a bad dream.”

“Back to the locked down foundry then, I guess.” Felicity said.

“Not exactly. Paradoxes and all that.” Sara said as she made the jump into the timestream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter's gonna be the last.   
> What do you think will happen?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Felicity traveled back to the present, and fix some things along the way.

Sara made the jump into the timestream and Felicity and Oliver lurched forward. She nearly went flying, but thankfully Oliver’s balance was a little better than hers and he caught her.

“Maybe a little warning next time, Sara.” Oliver said.

“You don’t seem too upset about the position you’re in right now.” She said with a smirk. Oliver was holding Felicity tightly in a pose that looked intimate to the outside observer. The Waverider came to a stop. “We’re here.”

“Great. Where, I mean when, are you dropping us off?” Felicity asked.

“You’ve been missing for two days at this point.” She told them. “I couldn’t get you two any closer than that for a few reasons.” Sara landed the Waverider on the roof of Oliver’s campaign office and disembarked with them. “I can’t tell you how to stop that future, there are some rules, but you two being in this time should be a big help. Don’t mess it up, okay?”

“We won’t. Don’t wait til the end of the world to visit us next time, okay?” Felicity asked.

“Okay. I think you two should go downstairs. I’m gonna stop by City Hall. Last time- its been a while since I’ve seen my dad.” She said. In the original timeline, Sara hadn’t had time to visit her dad because she was preoccupied trying to find Oliver and Felicity. The next time she came back, he’d been killed in HIVE’s attack. Oliver and Felicity weren’t the only ones getting a second chance here.

 

They all moved down from the roof. Sara headed towards the center of the city, while Oliver and Felicity took the stairs down to the lair. The stairs let out in a dark corner of the lair. The team and Lyla were standing near Felicity’s computers talking to someone.

“What do you mean you don’t know where either of them is?” Thea asked angrily. “How do you lose two fully grown and capable adults?”

“The bunker’s power went offline. Chase set off some kind of EMP. When we finally got down here, the lair was a mess and they were gone. We don’t know what happened or who took them, but its probably Chase.”

“It wasn’t Chase.” Felicity said, walking forwards. Now seemed like a good time to reveal to the others that they were there.

“Who-? Where have you been?” Digg asked.

“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you.” Oliver said. “But we’re back, and that’s what matters.”

“How can it not-?”

“Different time or different earth?” Lyla asked.

“Different time.” Felicity admitted. “And that’s all we’re going to say.” She then remembered something and handed Lyla a piece of paper. “Oh, this is for you.”

“What is-?”

“A way to track down Cayden James and Helix. I had a lotta time to think, and it’s a little odd, right, that they gave me what I needed to find Chase, only for the code to be destroyed by his EMP. Almost too much of a coincidence.”

“You think it was a set-up.”

“I don’t know but I’ve realized breaking him out of ARGUS custody might not’ve been the best idea. And since I can’t undo it, this is the next best thing.”

“You two seem…different.” Curtis remarked.

“To you, we’ve been gone for two days. To us, its been a little bit longer. We had a chance to work some things out.” Oliver said before pulling his sister aside. His run-in with an older Thea was still fresh in his mind and he felt the urge to remind this version of her that he loved her, no matter what might happen.

While the siblings had their moment, Felicity addressed the team. “Where are you guys on finding Chase?”

“Nowhere. We’ve been trying to find you.” Dinah answered.

“And I appreciate that, we both do, but stopping the search for him wasn’t a smart move.” She said. “So, let’s get back to that. Now.”

With Oliver and Felicity back in 2017, the team returned to searching for Chase. Without needing to keep looking for the pair, they noticed when a group operating similar to HIVE appeared on their radar. ARGUS became very interested when powerful but non-nuclear weapons started popping up for sale on the dark web. It took over a year, but ARGUS, along with Team Arrow, managed to smoke out all of the stragglers from HIVE and stop them from launching their attack.

Somehow, between stopping Chase and ending HIVE, the plague and the pandemic it caused never came to pass. Neither Oliver nor Felicity knew if it was a direct consequence of stopping the bombings or not. They were just happy that apocalyptic future wouldn’t come to pass.

One month after the team stopped Chase, Oliver and Felicity were in the loft debating whether or not they should tell the team about the future they saw when he started giving her a weird look. She stopped talking and asked him what was wrong.

“Nothing, its just- will you marry me?”

“I- aren’t you supposed to get down on one knee?”

“I did that last time, and it didn’t work out too well.” He pointed out. “But if it’ll make you happy…” he stood up and got down on one knee. He pulled out a little black box.

“How long have you been walking around with that?”

“Since Sara dropped us off.” He admitted. “What do you say?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.” She repeated, happily.

Oliver and Felicity’s journey back to each other was a lot more traumatizing and lonely than anyone knew, but based on how they both felt in this moment, it was more than worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was the ending too cheesy? Too short? What do you think?


End file.
